At the Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon, Volkswagen and Google announced a cooperative research project involving quantum computing. A quantum computer developed by Google will be used in three principle research areas: traffic optimization, simulation of material structures for electric car batteries and new materials, and new machine learning methods in artificial intelligence work.

The practical implementation stage will see specialists from the Volkswagen Information Technology Centers in San Francisco and Munich work with Google experts to develop algorithms, simulations and optimizations. Google is, however, not the only company with which Volkswagen is collaborating in the field of quantum computers. Back in March 2017, the Group announced a cooperative project with the Canadian company D-Wave , which claims to have constructed the world’s first quantum computer. This research project optimized the traffic routes of 10,000 taxis in the Chinese capital of Beijing.